Further evidence of Barack Obama’s close association with efforts to oppose President Trump has emerged: a group of former top lawyers for the Obama administration have formed an organization aimed at utilizing legal advocacy methods to oppose Trump’s policies.

The organization is calling itself United to Protect Democracy, drawing on the theme of Obama’s farewell speech last month.

The group is already partnered with an organization heavily financed by billionaire George Soros and is led by a former Obama lawyer who previously worked at a Soros-financed global activist outfit.

Politico first reported on the formation of United to Protect Democracy, which has already raised $1.5 million and hired five staffers.

While other Trump opponents focus on taking the president to court over the travel ban and deportations, the new group plans to drill into issues that aren’t already hitting the headlines, like potential intervention in and intimidation of regulatory agencies by West Wing staff. …

They started by submitting 50 Freedom of Information Act requests this week that they believe will confirm their suspicions. The plan is to bring what they find to reporters, build it into pressure for congressional oversight with the help of a campaign director they’ll hire, and, as necessary, to file lawsuits.

They’re also hoping to establish themselves as a base for government employees worried about ethics violations — up to and including becoming whistleblowers — and are hoping that their website can become a resource.

United to Protect Democracy is led by Ian Bassin, who served as Associate Counsel to the Obama White House and previously served in the Education Policy Working Group for Obama’s 2008 Presidential Transition Team.

“When people hear concerns about democracies declining into authoritarianism, they expect that moment to come in a singular thunderclap where everyone can see that this is the time,” Bassin told Politico. “In reality, oftentimes, democracies decline over a period of years that happen through a series of much smaller steps.”

Bassin previously served as General Counsel and Campaign Director at Avaaz, which describes itself as a “global web movement to bring people-powered politics to decision-making everywhere.”

Discover the Networks describes Avaaz as “the global counterpart of the George Soros-funded MoveOn,” and a “global ‘e-advocacy’ nonprofit organization whose chief function is to promote leftwing political agendas through Web-based movement-building and campaigns.”

ABC News reported that Avaaz has been funded by Soros, as well as the Soros-financed MoveOn.org and the SEIU labor union.

Politico, meanwhile, reported that Bassin’s United to Protect Democracy, which is taking on Trump, is “coming with a huge network of support from other Obama lawyers, as well as partner organizations like the Brennan Center.”

The Brennan Center for Justice, located at NYU School of Law, describes itself as a “nonpartisan law and policy institute that seeks to improve our systems of democracy and justice.”

The Brennan Center is heavily financed by Soros’s Open Society Foundations and is the recipient of numerous Open Society grants.

The group says it has an “urgent goal,” which is “to hold the President and the Executive Branch accountable to the laws and longstanding practices that have protected our democracy through both Democratic and Republican Administrations.”